FOI_24-347 Policies for staff and students
Date of response: 16 January 2025
We have now considered your request of 22 December 2024 for the following information:
Question 1. Any and all policies within your university that relate to:
• Extenuating Circumstances (ECs)
• Menstruation
• Pregnancy/Maternity/Adoption/Parenthood
• Breastfeeding
• Menopause/Perimenopause
• Women’s Health
• Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion
Our response:
All policies for students, including our Extenuating Circumstances policy, can be found on our web page: General Regulations - University Governance
Staff policies for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, can also be found on our web page:
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policies
Policies around breastfeeding can be found on the following web page: baby_change_and_feeding_room_guidance.pdf
For all pregnancy, maternity, adoption and parenthood related policies, please see accompanying document, our ref: FOI_24-347 Appendix A. Please note that these policies are for staff specifically.
On this occasion, it is not possible to provide all the requested information. The Act contains a number of exemptions that allow public authorities to withhold certain information from release. We have applied the following exemption to part of your request.
| Exemption | Reason |
|---|---|
| S.40(2), Personal Information | Disclosure of some of the requested information would be contrary to the requirements of the UK General Data Protection Regulation |
In line with s.40(2) of the Act we have removed certain personal data from FOI_24-347 Appendix A.
We believe that some of the requested information, specifically the name of the author of the documentation provided the personal data of the individual staff member, as defined by Article 4(1) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
We believe that disclosure of the personal information relating to this individual would be contrary to the requirements of Article 5(1)(a) of the GDPR; namely that information must be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner. These individuals would have no expectation that this information would be made publicly available, and we have not identified a lawful basis that would allow or require us to disclose this information.
Where information has been removed from the accompanying file we have replaced the text with a black rectangle.
Question 2. Any information you can share about the procedures used to construct, review, update and maintain these policies, for example:
• How often is the policy reviewed?
• Which role(s), group(s) or committee(s) within the university are responsible for creating, reviewing, updating, and/or maintaining the policy?
Our response:
The Exceptional Circumstances (extenuating circumstances) policy is the responsibility of the Learning and Teaching Committee, which is a sub-committee of the University Senate. As a minimum the policy is scheduled to be reviewed every five years, or more frequently as required when there is a need due to external drivers or student and staff feedback. Reviews will be conducted with relevant stakeholders and led by a member of the Learning and Teaching Committee.
Our People and Culture Division is responsible for creating, reviewing, updating, and maintaining our polices on Pregnancy, Maternity, Parenthood, Adoption and Breastfeeding policies. Please see FOI_24-347 Appendix A for the review dates of each policy.
Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee is responsible for the creation and review/update/maintenance of our Equality Diversity and Inclusion policy/code of practice. This policy is reviewed every two years, with the next review scheduled for December 2025.